4 ms·

My parents called this before Wolfenstein even came out, though they did it with the Commodore 64 and 128. I really wanted a 128, and they insisted on an IBM c

My parents called this before Wolfenstein even came out, though they did it with the Commodore 64 and 128. I really wanted a 128, and they insisted on an IBM compatible instead. I was devastated at the time, but they were 100% correct in hindsight.

tfandango 2y ago
Wow same here. My Dad could see which way the wind was blowing, I guess. It started my obsession with Sierra games though.
- wccrawford 2y ago
  Oh man, those games alone would have made the switch worth it. I had never considered that aspect. :D
billyjobob 2y ago
Your parents were wrong. Assuming you wanted to play games as well as run productivity software, the C128 was far superior to any PC in 1985. Yes the PC would eventually catch up in the 90s, but the C128 was discontinued by then.
- wccrawford 2y ago
  That's correct in the short term, but my parents were focused on the long-term and that the computer was an investment for my future, rather than a tool/toy for a present. It wasn't long before I admitted how correct they were.
  - billyjobob 2y ago
    Apparently a typical PC is 1985 cost upwards of $5000. The C128 was $299. So for rich people yes it may have made sense to pay a 15x premium to get hold of tech “from the future, today”. But you could have easily had both. And for a child, both machines would be entirely obsolete by the time the child grew up and entered the workforce, so I would question how much advantage you were really buying.
    - wccrawford 2y ago
      The numbers I remember were closer to $1500 for the PC, and it wasn't right at the launch of the 128. It had already been out for a while. That said, I was a kid, so I don't really remember the numbers well. We were definitely not rich.
    - ChainOfFools 2y ago
      $5,000 is nowhere close to accurate for a 'typical' PC of that era. In 1985 or 1986, I don't recall the exact year, my dad purchased a rather exotic machine called a Panasonic Sr. Partner, which was one of the first all-in-one portable PC compatibles on the market. It had built-in dual floppies, I think 384k of memory, a built-in monochrome screen and a built-in printer of all things. I believe the out of the store price was something like $2,300. With a model below that available for under $2,000, I think with less ram or only one floppy or something. But anyway this was for a fairly atypical take on the PC and a regular white box of the same era could have been had for perhaps half of that with the same or better specs.
- tverbeure 2y ago
  I had a C128 in 1986, but I don’t see how it was superior to any PC. The 8086 was faster, it had more memory, it had more expansion slots, and of course there was way more software if you exclude gaming. In 1988, I had saved up for an Amiga, but my father offered to match what I had saved for a hard drive if I bought a PC instead.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - billyjobob 2y ago
    Like most kids in the 80s I would never “exclude gaming” from my evaluation. The PC was 15x as expensive as the C128 and still wasn’t any good for gaming. While C128 had the entire C64 games library available! It also had the CP/M software library and could run productivity software in 80 columns. Yes CP/M software wasn’t as good as DOS software, yes your spreadsheets didn’t calculate as quickly, but for a couple of years the C128 was the best option, until the Amiga came along. The Amiga was certainly the best option in 1988. Arguably it was the best until about 1995.
    - Gormo 2y ago
      Of course, DOS had completely caught up in the gaming space within 3-5 years.
  - forinti 2y ago
    8086 wasn't really much faster. It just allowed you to use more memory and was easier to write assembly to. BASIC was actually slower on the original PC than on the 6502 and the Z80.
tored 2y ago
I had a Commodore 64 that I had bought with my own money, but my friend (rather his dad) had a Commodore 128 with a floppy drive. I was so impressed but also extremely jealous. My brother though bought a PC.
Clubber 2y ago
My experience is almost identical. I had a Vic20, C64, C128 and then an A1000 as a kid, then my parents bought a 286 AT 10MHZ with a 20MB HDD and everything changed. They were absolutely right. Had I stuck with Commodore instead of switching in 10th grade, I would have been way behind.
- wccrawford 2y ago
  Yeah. I actually agree with the other comment that the C128 was better than my IBM Compat at the time, but my parents weren't looking at the present. They were looking at the future, and even said so. My first was a 386/20, which had a problem and Circuit City's guarantee saw us trade it out for a "better" computer for free... That turned out to be a 386/16. I didn't know enough about them at the time to spot the problem. It wasn't long before I had a 486, though, so the problem wasn't long-lived. I've never forgiven them for the deception, but they went out of business, so I guess I won? (I see they're back now somehow. Wow, what a joke.)
forinti 2y ago
My family had a Beeb with 128KB of RAM. I thought XTs were awful. Sure, they had more RAM, but for our use cases (games and word processing), it wasn't really necessary. I even learnt Pascal on it. Things definitely changed with 386s and Windows.
glonq 2y ago
I moved from an 8-bit Atari to a CGA IBM XT clone. This was both a step forwards and a step backwards. It wasn't until I upgraded to a 386SX PC with VGA and a SoundBlaster that I could totally retire the Atari.

tfandango 2y ago

Wow same here. My Dad could see which way the wind was blowing, I guess. It started my obsession with Sierra games though.

wccrawford 2y ago
Oh man, those games alone would have made the switch worth it. I had never considered that aspect. :D

billyjobob 2y ago

Your parents were wrong. Assuming you wanted to play games as well as run productivity software, the C128 was far superior to any PC in 1985. Yes the PC would eventually catch up in the 90s, but the C128 was discontinued by then.

wccrawford 2y ago
That's correct in the short term, but my parents were focused on the long-term and that the computer was an investment for my future, rather than a tool/toy for a present. It wasn't long before I admitted how correct they were.
- billyjobob 2y ago
  Apparently a typical PC is 1985 cost upwards of $5000. The C128 was $299. So for rich people yes it may have made sense to pay a 15x premium to get hold of tech “from the future, today”. But you could have easily had both. And for a child, both machines would be entirely obsolete by the time the child grew up and entered the workforce, so I would question how much advantage you were really buying.
  - wccrawford 2y ago
    The numbers I remember were closer to $1500 for the PC, and it wasn't right at the launch of the 128. It had already been out for a while. That said, I was a kid, so I don't really remember the numbers well. We were definitely not rich.
  - ChainOfFools 2y ago
    $5,000 is nowhere close to accurate for a 'typical' PC of that era. In 1985 or 1986, I don't recall the exact year, my dad purchased a rather exotic machine called a Panasonic Sr. Partner, which was one of the first all-in-one portable PC compatibles on the market. It had built-in dual floppies, I think 384k of memory, a built-in monochrome screen and a built-in printer of all things. I believe the out of the store price was something like $2,300. With a model below that available for under $2,000, I think with less ram or only one floppy or something. But anyway this was for a fairly atypical take on the PC and a regular white box of the same era could have been had for perhaps half of that with the same or better specs.
tverbeure 2y ago
I had a C128 in 1986, but I don’t see how it was superior to any PC. The 8086 was faster, it had more memory, it had more expansion slots, and of course there was way more software if you exclude gaming. In 1988, I had saved up for an Amiga, but my father offered to match what I had saved for a hard drive if I bought a PC instead.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- billyjobob 2y ago
  Like most kids in the 80s I would never “exclude gaming” from my evaluation. The PC was 15x as expensive as the C128 and still wasn’t any good for gaming. While C128 had the entire C64 games library available! It also had the CP/M software library and could run productivity software in 80 columns. Yes CP/M software wasn’t as good as DOS software, yes your spreadsheets didn’t calculate as quickly, but for a couple of years the C128 was the best option, until the Amiga came along. The Amiga was certainly the best option in 1988. Arguably it was the best until about 1995.
  - Gormo 2y ago
    Of course, DOS had completely caught up in the gaming space within 3-5 years.
- forinti 2y ago
  8086 wasn't really much faster. It just allowed you to use more memory and was easier to write assembly to. BASIC was actually slower on the original PC than on the 6502 and the Z80.

tored 2y ago

I had a Commodore 64 that I had bought with my own money, but my friend (rather his dad) had a Commodore 128 with a floppy drive. I was so impressed but also extremely jealous. My brother though bought a PC.

Clubber 2y ago

My experience is almost identical. I had a Vic20, C64, C128 and then an A1000 as a kid, then my parents bought a 286 AT 10MHZ with a 20MB HDD and everything changed. They were absolutely right. Had I stuck with Commodore instead of switching in 10th grade, I would have been way behind.

wccrawford 2y ago
Yeah. I actually agree with the other comment that the C128 was better than my IBM Compat at the time, but my parents weren't looking at the present. They were looking at the future, and even said so. My first was a 386/20, which had a problem and Circuit City's guarantee saw us trade it out for a "better" computer for free... That turned out to be a 386/16. I didn't know enough about them at the time to spot the problem. It wasn't long before I had a 486, though, so the problem wasn't long-lived. I've never forgiven them for the deception, but they went out of business, so I guess I won? (I see they're back now somehow. Wow, what a joke.)

forinti 2y ago

My family had a Beeb with 128KB of RAM. I thought XTs were awful. Sure, they had more RAM, but for our use cases (games and word processing), it wasn't really necessary. I even learnt Pascal on it. Things definitely changed with 386s and Windows.

glonq 2y ago

I moved from an 8-bit Atari to a CGA IBM XT clone. This was both a step forwards and a step backwards. It wasn't until I upgraded to a 386SX PC with VGA and a SoundBlaster that I could totally retire the Atari.